2008

OK, so they want to shoot down that satellite; depending on who you believe, because of its Evil Nasty Chems, to keep the Secret Spook Systems aboard from the general enemy, or just to do a live-fire exercise with SPACE ROCKETS!!! and impress the Chinese. Well, the first one is nonsense, the second is unimpressive…

Read More Whoosh Kaboom!

Continuing our Weekend of Defence Procurement, we’ve bashed the FRES vehicle program enough in the past. Costed at £14bn, meant to deliver a C-130 portable, RPG-tough, wheeled vehicle capable of carrying something equivalent to a tank main gun and providing reconnaissance, big gun, infantry, and utility variants, it’s so far failed to deliver anything at…

Read More French FRES Flop Forecast

I promised more serious content; here goes. Right, everyone is vexed about the RUSI report (PDF download) that was recently published under the names of Gwyn Prins (a minor hero of this blog’s, for his The Heart of War: Power, Conflict, and Obligation in the 21st Century) and the Marquess of Salisbury (no less, who…

Read More Rosyth RUSI Rant

OK, so it’s frankly hilarious that a RESPECT councillor and Socialist Workers Party member has defected to the Tories. But describing him as a “socialist jihadist conservative” is offensive, stupid, illiberal and anti-democratic, not to mention libellous. For a start, it assumes facts not in evidence. Mr Hussain is not, to the best of my…

Read More James Graham Badly Needs to Wind his Neck In

OK, so it’s frankly hilarious that a RESPECT councillor and Socialist Workers Party member has defected to the Tories. But describing him as a “socialist jihadist conservative” is offensive, stupid, illiberal and anti-democratic, not to mention libellous. For a start, it assumes facts not in evidence. Mr Hussain is not, to the best of my…

Read More James Graham Badly Needs to Wind his Neck In